Mariya Munir, PhD

Mariya Munir is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). She earned her undergraduate degree in Biotechnology (2008) and a Master’s degree (2010) and a Ph.D. (2014) in Environmental Engineering from Michigan State University. She then joined Virginia Tech as a Postdoctoral Researcher before joining UNCC in 2016. Her primary research interest is in Microbial Water Quality and Public Health related issues. Her research area focuses on the detection, removal, and inactivation of emerging biological contaminants in water and wastewater systems. She is also working on studying engineered media amendments like Biochar for contaminant removal in stormwater runoff filtration systems. Her experience in the application of environmental microbiology techniques in studying antibiotic resistance bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater treatment plants provides a strong background for her research on the COVID19 pandemic. She is involved in tracking SARCOV-2 in wastewater treatment plants in Charlotte, North Carolina, also a participant of the North Carolina Wastewater Monitoring Network collaborating with NC DHHS and contributing to the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS). She is one of the co-PI of the campus wastewater monitoring program at UNC Charlotte.